Clydesdales May Go, But Calls Prove They Won't Be Forgotten

Williamsburg notebook

October 09, 2009|By Dan Parsons and Tyra M. Vaughn Daily Press

The Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales may be gone from here, but they haven't been forgotten.

We received a lot of phone calls Thursday from people mourning the loss of the iconic horses from the exhibit at Busch Gardens after it was announced Wednesday they would not be included in the Anheuser-Busch InBev sale of theme parks to Blackstone Group.

(Didn't know the parks had been sold? Check dailypress .com/buschgardens for our coverage of the Busch Gardens and Water Country sale or check Saturday's paper for more about what this means to you.)

A few callers wanted to know why the horses - which have been a part of the Anheuser-Busch tradition since 1933 when they given as a gift to August A. Busch Sr. to celebrate the end of prohibition - weren't included in the deal.

We're still trying to find out, but we can guess that as such an iconic part of A-B, the company wanted to just keep them in the family. The Clydesdales aren't gone forever, remember. They'll become part of a traveling exhibit used in Budweiser marketing initiatives.

NEW CONDOS STILL BEING BUILT

Almost half of the new condominiums under construction as part of Project City Green on Richmond Road are ready to be occupied, city officials said Thursday.

Williamsburg Planning Director Reed Nester said staff members have already issued a certificate of occupancy for eight of the 24 units and will issue two more in the next week.

The condos were built using LEED standards, Nester said. The standards promote energy efficiency and environmental design.

There is also new retail space near the condos. One vacant shop will soon be home to a Domino's Pizza, and one is temporarily being used as office space for the Democratic Party, Nester said.

PUBLIC INPUT AD NAUSEUM

So, a proposal to allow up to four people to live in a rental house that was on the table, then all but killed by a consensus of the city's Planning Commission, is back on the table. Sort of.

Nester, as the city's chief planner, told City Council Thursday that the commission a day earlier reached a consensus that the "four-person" proposal should not be allowed in single-family residential neighborhoods. But, commissioners are keen to identify parts of the city where the proposal is a better fit, he said.

So, the tentative schedule for consideration of the proposal is this: The Planning Commission will meet next Wednesday, then again for a work session before the end of the month. At its regular November meeting, it should make a recommendation to council. At all three there will be opportunity for public input, as there had been at every previous commission meeting on the subject for months.

Nester asked whether council would then like to consider the commission's recommendation at its regular December meeting. Councilman Paul Freiling worried that the public wouldn't have ample time to comment, though council, too, must hold a public hearing. But you have to ask: Is the Planning Department running out of room to store the transcripts on this issue?